New flowers, veggies for your garden in 2013 (gallery)

With the way spring hasstarted out,chances are you are eager for garden centers to fill up with fresh, colorful plants.

The old standby annuals, perennials and vegetables will be back, but, as happensevery spring, never-before-seen flowers and vegetables will debut. Thousands of new plants are introduced annually. While they won't all make it into your neighborhood garden center, or your favorite catalogs, many will.

One thing to keep in mind is that some garden centers will not carry Impatiens walleriana, extremely popular flowers that bring bursts of white, pink, purple and other colors to their landscapes from spring until fall. A disease called impatiens downy mildew, which first appeared in Europe a few years ago, has spread to some states around the country, including Ohio.

"Thirty percent of our flat production was Impatiens [walleriana]," says Scott Kollman of Kollman's Greenhouse Inc. in Twinsburg."This is a big hit."

Dean'sGreenhouse in Westlake also announced it will not be shipping Impatiens walleriana.

New veggiesare grabbing a lot of attention this year, whichwill come as no surprise to anyone who has been gardening for a while, particularly vegetable growers.

"We have enjoyed an explosion of new gardeners, 'foodies,' wanting to grow their own food," Jeff Griff, owner of Lowe's Greenhouses, Florist & Gift Shop in Chagrin Falls, said in an email. "For them, everything is new. These folks know kale is great for you, but growing Russian red kale is all new to them. They will love Swiss chard 'Bright Lights' for its beauty, ease of growth and healthful properties. There are way too many new tomatoes [to name] every year but 'Ultra Sweet' is still our most popular variety."

Kollman also singles out vegetables as attention-getters.

"So many consumers are coming to that arena, and it's new to them," he says.

The newest grafted tomatoes (and other grafted vegetables) are evolving home gardening, Kollman adds. The tomatoes are more flavorful and disease-resistant, but they also tend to be more expensive.

Grafting has been used in agriculture for centuries to improve plant health and yield (fruit trees and grapevines are two familiar examples). Grafted vegetables are currently widespread in Asia and Europe among produce growers and are gaining popularity in the United States.

Grafted vegetables are created when the top part of one plant (the scion) is attached to the root system of a separate plant (the rootstock), according to an explanation on Territorial Seed Co.'s website. The rootstock contributes vigor and disease resistance, while the scion is chosen for fruit flavor and quality.

Speaking of tomatoes, Burpee is boasting its SuperSauce Hybrid tomato, "The world's largest sauce tomato," the company claims. It weighs 2 pounds and is 51/2 inches tall and 5 inches wide.

Burpee is conducting research on new varieties of vegetables and herbs that address the needs of aging baby boomers, W. Atlee Burpee CEO George Ball said in a telephone interview. The company is experimenting with creating "age-specific" varieties.

Burpee is also researching vegetables for mothers who want to avoid commercial baby food in favor of home-grown. In the near future, the company plans to offer high-yielding varieties of relatively bland-tasting but uniquely soft-fruited vegetables such as peas, squash, carrots and broccoli, says Ball.

As for flowers, Burpee kicks 2013 off with a new sunflower, 'Solar Flare.' The showy flower features dark black discs orbited by ray petals that begin in scarlet-red flame and finish in gold at elegant, tapered tips. See more on their website.

Louise Reiling of Auburn Pointe Greenhouse in Chagrin Falls says she is excited about vinca 'Jams 'N Jellies Blackberry,'an annual that is very easy to grow, loves full sun and heat, is very vigorous, doesn't have to be watered every day and is good in hanging baskets and containers.

As for a shade lover, Reiling likes begonia 'Million Kisses Devotion,' a bright-orange trailing begonia that's also low-maintenance. One of her favorite new cut flowers is cosmos 'Double Click Bicolor Pink.'

"The flowers are substantially larger and more numerous, and the plant has excellent branching, both much improved over older varieties," the company said of the plant, which will be new to Northern gardens. "The foliage is fuzzy silvery-green."

All of Proven Winners' new flowering plants in shades of red are Supertunia petunias. The group includes Supertunia 'Pink Charm,' which has a watercolor version of pink, gracing petite flowers; Supertunia 'Watermelon Charm,' with a vibrant pinkish-red hue, and Supertunia 'Picasso in Pink,' which is a more abstract, bright-pink color framed with green.

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